54 
HOTTENTOT FIG. 
31 Jan. 
The scarcity of fire-wood in Cape Town has forced the poorer 
inhabitants to discover a timely resource in these under-ground stems 
and roots, which, being in mere loose sand, are dug up with great 
ease. But, however convenient this source of fuel may be to indivi- 
duals, the destroying of the bushes, root and branch, will at last be- 
come a greater inconvenience to the public, as the Isthmus will then 
be reduced to a sand-desert, still more difficult for waggons to travel 
over than it is at present. If an opposite system were pursued, and 
the growth of shrubs and trees, with sedge and sand-grasses, encou- 
raged, the trees would protect the soil from the action of strong 
winds ; while the sedge would not only fix the loose sand, and form 
a harder ground, but might, at the same time, afford nourishment for 
cattle, which would certainly prefer such pasture to the hard reed- 
like stalks of the different kinds of Restio that overspread a great part 
of these Flats. Few experiments, in the way of agricultural improve- 
ment, seem of more importance to Cape Town, or better worth try- 
ing, than that of rendering these extensive sands more easily passable, 
or of converting them to some use, or to some more productive 
purpose. 
From the windmill, I strayed south-easterly, nearly three hours, 
towards the Liesbeck river, over level ground decorated with many 
pretty heaths ; the sand and wind being here less annoying. The 
Isthmus, in most places, is clothed with bushes in great variety, and 
hard coarse rushes {Restiones) ; but grass is rarely to be found. P?'o- 
tea Leviscmus is every where a very common shrub *, and the Hottentot 
fig t grows in many places, spreading over the ground in large patches. 
* Noticing at this time the very evident dicecious character of this plant, and having 
ah'eady observed the same circumstance in several other species of Protea, I was quite con- 
vinced that it was a character separating all the cone-beai"ing Protcas into a very natural 
and distinct genus ; and pointed it out to my friend Hesse. I then gave to it the name 
of Strohilaria, not being aware that the same division had just then been made in England 
by two different writers, both able botanists, who have each assigned to it names ; the 
one, Chasme, Euryspermiim, Protea, and Gissonia ; and the other, Leiicadendron, (or 
Leiicodendron,) an old name, originally intended as a Greek version of the Dutch word 
Wittehoom, the colonial name of the Protect argcntca of Linnaeus, or the Silver-tree. 
+ Mesemhri/antheiimm cdide. 
